Centerville couple committed to marriage after traumatic brain injury

SANDWICH — Like many couples, Lynne and Gary Brennan of Centerville chose to renew their vows during their 40th wedding anniversary celebration last year.

But unlike most long-married couples, the Brennans were just getting to know each other again.

In January 2014, a horrific car crash erased much of Gary’s memory — including the memory of the marriage that yielded two grown sons.

Gary had suffered a traumatic brain injury and had to re-learn how to cross the street, use the phone and dry off after a shower.

Even now, Gary “thinks differently. He processes differently than he did before. Not in a bad way. It’s just different,” Lynne said during an interview at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Cape Cod, where Gary was treated after his accident and where both Brennans are now volunteers.

At Christmas, Gary will choose a different tie, and at a familiar restaurant, order a different favorite dish, Lynne said.

It’s almost as if her husband is a new version of his former self, a person Lynne said she has nicknamed “Gary 2.0.”

The Brennans will give a talk in Sandwich on Tuesday sponsored by Spaulding on the joys and sorrows of marriage following one partner’s life-altering injury.

Called “I (Still) Do!” the talk will cover their journey through recovery to a “new normal.”

On the day their lives changed forever, Gary, who was principal tax assessor for the town of Holbrook, was driving on Route 24 north near the Brockton line.

“He was rear-ended in the high speed lane by an inattentive driver,” Lynne said.

He spun out and struck a traffic sign that fell on his vehicle.

Rescue workers found Gary with an abrasion on his head and a “de-gloved” left hand.

But the worst injury was invisible, caused by his brain bouncing back and forth and from side to side during the crash, the Brennans said.

“He was single. But he was engaged to be married to a girl on the Cape in a few months,” Lynne said. “That was me.”

“His head was back in the winter of 1974-75,” said Lynne, who is retired from a position as head of school at New Testament Christian School in Norton.

After a week at Boston Medical Center and eight days at Spaulding, in addition to outpatient therapy, Gary made giant steps.

He learned to drive again, regained the ability to read and got a handle on the emotions that caused him to sob over song lyrics.

But the journey did not take him all the way to his old self.

“The fatigue part is huge,” said Gary, now 62, who was allowed to retire from his municipal job and now volunteers two days a week at Spaulding.

Things that were once effortless take concentration, Gary said. “All of a sudden you realize you are thinking about the process. That’s one of the things that’s different.”

Even now he can have sudden gaps in his memory, expressing amazement during a lunch outing that his wife had taught junior high school for 13 years.

“I liken it to a security camera that only holds a certain amount of footage,” Lynne said.

“I’m still hearing stories,” Gary said.

Healing from brain injury is different from recovering from a fracture or the flu, Spaulding social worker Janet Mooney said.

“Life’s going to return to a normalcy,” Mooney said. “But it’s going to be a new normal for people.”

Expecting a brain injury to heal 100 percent is not realistic, Mooney said. “The best you can get is 99 percent.”

“It’s lonely because they are not the same person they were and you are grieving for that person,” Lynne said. “But they are sitting right there.”

“You go through a whole grief cycle,” said Gary, who was in a graduate program at the time of the crash. “You go through it more than once.”

But Gary said his new life also has included opportunities to grow and succeed in new areas.

Gary, who used to sit at a desk for work and would not consider running anywhere, now has lost has 40 pounds and found he likes exercise, even jogging when the weather is nice.

He said he also considers his volunteer work talking to patients at Spaulding to be more rewarding than his previous career.

Patients appreciate hearing from someone who has been through a similar event, Mooney said. She said a single mother at a loss for how to care for her family was inspired by Gary’s description of budgeting energy and making careful withdrawals from “the energy bank.”

The Brennans — who are involved with support groups run by the Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts — say they renewed their vows May 31, 2015, to reaffirm their commitment to each other and send a message about the importance of marriage and enduring love.

“When we said for better or worse, in sickness and health, we meant it,” Gary said.